Page 96 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

Capitals and the use of time 87

successful, there had been a conversion of economic resources (capital) into
cultural ones. Further, that these cultural resources are connected to social
ones.
Cultural resources had also been used on behalf of the interviewees and
they were seeking to use them for their own children. However, an important
issue is how those who come from backgrounds that are relatively modest in
terms of cultural capital have managed to succeed. In this respect, Devine
suggests that this shows some drawbacks with Bourdieu’s theories, however,
‘there is considerable merit to Bourdieu’s ideas, for he captures the different
ways in which those in modest positions engage with the education system’
(p. 180). Again, Devine places an important emphasis on the uncertainties
of these situations. Investment of capital does not always ensure success.
Cultural resources are important, especially in the extent to which parents
have knowledge of the education system and are able to guide their children
appropriately.
With respect to social resources or social capital, Devine argues that these
both tend to slip out of the analyses of Goldthorpe and Bourdieu (p. 182). She
found that social capital was important in both the UK and the USA. ‘Overall,
therefore, the privileged parents of my interviewees certainly drew on their
social networks, both intentionally and unintentionally, in helping their chil-
dren do well’ (p. 183). However, the less well off had also used social contacts
to their benefit. Likewise, the interviewees were seeking ‘to shape their child-
ren’s own emerging social networks to enhance the chances of educational
success’ (p. 184). Again there are uncertainties, as nothing will guarantee
success.
Devine emphasizes the interconnections of the forms of capital that she
has studied in this case:
[S]ocial resources are as important as economic and cultural resources in
the pursuit of educational and occupational success. That said, like cul-
tural resources, social resources are inclusive rather than exclusive goods
in that people have more or less of them rather than all or none of them.
(Devine 2004: 185)
This relativity is important, as it shows that forms of capital can be
mobilized in specific contexts even if some people will have more or less of
them. There are important lessons for public policy that Devine draws from
her research in particular concerning the role of access to the education system
in as equal a way as possible in promoting social mobility and equality in
advanced capitalist countries such as the UK and the USA.
The particular significance of Devine’s study for my approach to ordin-
ary life is threefold. First, as argued in the previous chapter, attention to
ordinary life does not mean that issues such as class become less important
to analysis. Actually the opposite is the case. However, this does entail
retheorization of what class actually means, especially if it requires casting
the analysis wider than economic logics and occupational classifications.
Second, and related, is the fact that economic, cultural and social resources
intertwine in processes of inequality and distinction. Devine shows very well
and in some detail (which I have not discussed) how this happens. Analysis of